Two won chess tournaments

Chess update!

The past two weekends I participated in two chess tournaments and.. managed to win them both.
The first one was in Cedar Rapids, only 30 minutes away from Iowa City. It was a 4 round tournament with 40 contestants. I won three games and drew one. Funny enough, my 3,5 out of 4 was enough for the first price!

This weekend I played a 5 round tournament in Madison, the capitol of Wisconsin. This is a 3,5 hour drive. On my way there, I dropped off Abi in Dubuque, she went there to spend a weekend with her friends from Loras College. I arrived in Madison on Saturday. The tournament was already on its way but they gave me a free point. A first round point is an option if you are rated above 2200 and me and one other player used this option.
I won the second round game within the hour, so this gave me time to check out the city and to go see a movie. The third round was a long game versus a 13 year old talent that I managed to win. At night I had some beers with Chris, a friend from Abi's program in Amsterdam last year.
Round 4 on Sunday morning led to another smooth and fast victory, so I did the capitol tour and chilled on one of the lakes (that was frozen) in the sun. The other 2200+ player lost to a talent and withdrew from the tournament, so round 5 led to the fourth 1800 opponent and another quick win: 5 out of 5, 250 dollars and tournament victory!
One of the contestants wrote something about the tournament on his blog:
gettingto2000.blogspot.com

This week I'll publish some mating combinations from the previous weekends!

Tex